Signals from motion
This project investigates whether human body motion is a biological signal system. We are examining the kinds of fitness-relevant information conveyed by everyday body motion, how this information is perceived by observers, and to what extent this information is reliable or deceptive. A detailed description of this programme is available here.
Sample Stimuli
Perceived health from motion
These are sample motion stimuli, for recent work showing that perceived health from biological motion predicts vote choice. This is the case even for short motion clips such as those below, showing only a simple turning movement. Raters can differ in which clip they judge to be healthier, but the best predictor of their vote choice is not attractiveness or perceived leadership, but perceived health.
Links are to QuickTime movies. Robin Kramer made these stimuli using his custom software. Clips are taken from video of the second Obama-McCain presidential debate, and from speeches by Brown and Cameron to the House of Commons.
Barack Obama
John McCain
Gordon Brown
David Cameron
3D motion tracking
The video below is an example from Bangor’s new motion tracking system. This system records the motion of tracking points in 3D space.
